Libertarian Futurist Society president William H. Stoddard emceed the 45th Prometheus Awards and introduced the Prometheus Hall of Fame category for Best Classic Fiction, which was presented by libertarian luminary and Prometheus-nominated fantasy novelist David Friedman.
The August 30, 2025 awards ceremony, presented live via Zoom on August 30, 2025, was recorded and later posted on Youtube. Here is the text of Stoddard’s speech:
The Prometheus Hall of Fame award was established in 1983.
Initially we gave it to two classic works of libertarian science fiction each year. Our first two winners were virtually inevitable choices: Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the book that established libertarian science fiction as a recognized genre, and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the fictional treatment of libertarian ideas that brought large numbers of people into what became the libertarian movement.
The next year’s award went to two classic dystopias, George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
Since then we’ve settled down to one winner a year, and opened the award not merely to novels but to work in any narrative or dramatic form. Such works become eligible 20 years after their original publication.
To present this year’s award, we have the honor of having David Friedman as a guest speaker.
David first gained recognition among libertarians for The Machinery of Freedom, originally published 1973, and perhaps the most lucid and also the most entertainingly written treatment of anarchocapitalist proposals—one that shows “the way things work” in the society it envisions in a classic Heinleinian style.
It’s less well known that he’s also the author of three fantasy novels (Harald, Salamander and Brothers) that reflect libertarian thinking in various ways.
Back in 2014, when the Libertarian Futurist Society gave its second Special Award for Lifetime Achievement to Vernor Vinge, David came to San Diego to be in the audience.
In Vernor’s acceptance speech, he mentioned that one of the inspirations for his explorations of libertarian ideas was reading The Machinery of Freedom.
From the audience, David commented that his own work was stimulated by thinking about Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress!
That kind of dialogue between authors is commonplace in science fiction, and one of its great delights; it’s less usual for one of the stages to be a work of serious political and legal theory.
But I think that shows why David fits right in to our community.
It’s a privilege and a pleasure to have him here to present this year’s Hall of Fame Award.
WATCH THE 45TH PROMETHEUS AWARDS CEREMONY
* Watch the full 45-minute video of the 45th Prometheus Awards ceremony, which was recorded Aug. 30, 2025 with six eloquent, thought-provoking, occasionally poignant or amusing speeches by David D. Friedman, Astrid Anderson Bear, Kevin Flynn, LFS President William H. Stoddard and LFS co-founder Michael Grossberg. The ceremony is posted on YouTube and available to see here.
ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS AND THE LFS
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future. In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.
* Prometheus winners: For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website. This page includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts.
